How to prep for & deliver a winning presentation

Here are five presentation tips to keep in mind that’ll help you deliver a winning performance.

1. Craft a compelling story.

The best presentations open with a bang: a crazy anecdote, a memorable statistic, a bit of humor. That’s not by accident. You have one shot to grab your audience’s attention and less than a minute to tell them who you are, why you care about the topic at hand, and why they should too.

How you frame your story from that opening gambit is also important. It should follow a narrative arc, similar to a detective novel: Here’s the problem, a list of potential solutions, the big reveal, and the final conclusion that ties it all up in a pretty pink bow. Bringing the presentation full circle creates the opportunity to reiterate your most important talking points and gives the audience a sense of conclusiveness. They’ll walk away feeling like they learned something—or at least wanting to learn more.

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2. Map out a multimedia plan.

Most people are visual learners. Incorporating compelling photos, illustrations, and infographics into your presentation makes it come alive. But too much of a good thing—or even a little of a bad thing, like corny clip art and stock photos or obnoxious fonts—can backfire by distracting your audience. When presenting slides, make sure your color palette and typefaces are consistent throughout and that you’re not overwhelming your viewers with content they won’t have time to process. (Remember, they’re supposed to be listening to you speak—not reading your screen.) Video can be effective, so long as you keep the clips short (a minute or less), the music inoffensive (this is not the forum for death metal), and avoid slick corporate infomercials that listeners are likely to tune out. Another faux pas: Playing a video that features you as the talking head—um, awkward.

3. Learn to self-edit.

Coco Chanel famously said, “Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off.” Giving a presentation is no different. Desperate to demonstrate the breadth of their work, people often try to cover too much ground in limited time. It’s better to dial back sweeping subject matter and go narrower and deeper on the most critical points. Think of yourself as a movie editor: Only the juiciest bits make the final cut—save the rest for the DVD (or, in this case, a post-presentation happy hour).

4. Test your video setup.

Whether you’re pitching a new client or presenting before your company’s board of directors, the quality of the call matters. Start by conducting a basic sound and light check. If your voice is muffled, adjust the mic settings. If it’s garbled or patchy, check the connection. If an east-facing window washes out your face or back lights you like a Witness Protection silhouette, lower the shades and shift your position. And if your cat insists on parading behind your shoulders every time you log in for a conference, boot them to another room.

Though it may be tempting to showcase your taste in home decor, your background should be clean and professional-looking; you’ll never go wrong with a solid-colored wall. Even a bookshelf can be a distraction: The last thing you want is people trying to read the spines instead of focusing on your presentation. If there’s no hiding your Star Wars action figures or that mountain of unwashed laundry, switch on a background-blur feature and watch it disappear.

5. Do a few (dozen) dry runs.

If you’ve ever seen an entrepreneur blow their chances on Shark Tank, it’s painful to watch—and they’ve probably rehearsed that pitch a hundred times. Even the most well-rehearsed lines can fly out the window when you’re nervous, but the more you practice, the more confident you’ll be giving your spiel to strangers. Get prepared by memorizing your talking points (it’s okay to reference bullet points on notecards), practicing in front of family and friends, and taping a trial run of your presentation so you can look for ways to improve your projection, clarity, cadence, posture, and other mannerisms.

Now that you have a few go-to tips for presenting, all you need to do is put them into action. Next thing you know, you’ll be commanding the room and captivating your audience without so much as breaking a sweat.